The present invention relates to an information recording apparatus and method that execute information recording with a replacement process with respect to a rewritable information recording medium characterized by high-density recording.
As an information recording medium characterized by high-density recording, a DVD (Digital Video Disk) is known. In recent years, the DVD has been extensively studied and developed. The DVD is roughly classified into a read-only DVD-ROM and a rewritable DVD-RAM. In the DVD-RAM, a wobbled track is recorded, and sector fields are formed in units of predetermined track lengths. Each sector field is handled as a minimum unit of data recording. The sector field contains address data indicating the absolute position on a disk, and data is recorded/played back with by the help of this address data.
However, the sector fields may include defective ones from which the address data cannot be normally played back due to the influences of scratches or dust on the disk. In such case, data is recorded/played back by the help of wobbles (by counting wobbles).
However, normal data recording/playback often fails if it is done by the help of only wobbles. When data recording/playback is continued by the help of only wobbles which have slight changes, data recording/playback precision suffers considerable drop. In addition, data recording/playback precision drop is also accounted for by miscounting of wobbles due to defective wobbles. Also, when tracking errors has occurred, wobbles can no longer help.
The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and has as its object to provide a data recording apparatus and method with a replacement process, which can prevent any data recording/playback precision drop.
(1) A data recording apparatus with a replacement process according to the present invention, comprises:
playback means for accessing an optical disk to play back address data recorded in header fields assured in each sector field;
first discrimination means for discriminating based on a playback result of the address data by the playback means if the sector field which records the address data is defective;
second discrimination means for discriminating based on discrimination results of the first discrimination means with respect to a predetermined number of sector fields included in one block if the block is defective;
assignment means for assigning k2 blocks larger than k1 blocks (k1 less than k2) substantially required for recording k1 ECC block data as a recording area of the k1 ECC block data upon recording the k1 ECC block data on the optical disk; and
recording means for replacing and recording a predetermined number of sector data in a predetermined number of sector fields included in a normal block, which is not determined by the second discrimination means to be defective, to have one-to-one correspondence with each other, while skipping a defective block which is determined by the second discrimination means to be defective, upon recording a predetermined number of sector data in a predetermined number of sector fields included in the block to have one-to-one correspondence with each other.
(2) A data recording method with a replacement process according to the present invention, comprises:
the first step of accessing an optical disk to play back address data recorded in header fields assured in each sector field;
the second step of discriminating based on a playback result of the address data in the first step if the sector field which records the address data is defective;
the third step of discriminating based on discrimination results in the second step with respect to a predetermined number of sector fields included in one block if the block is defective;
the fourth step of assigning k2 blocks larger than k1 blocks (k1 less than k2) substantially required for recording k1 ECC block data as a recording area of the k1 ECC block data upon recording the k1 ECC block data on the optical disk; and
the fifth step of replacing and recording a predetermined number of sector data in a predetermined number of sector fields included in a normal block, which is not determined in the third step to be defective, to have one-to-one correspondence with each other, while skipping a defective block which is determined in the third step to be defective, upon recording a predetermined number of sector data in a predetermined number of sector fields included in the block to have one-to-one correspondence with each other.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out hereinafter.